Tryptic soy blood agar plates

[sciencefairproject]

For my project Which Acne Medication Can Really Zap That Zit? ( https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... Q&from=TSW ), do I have to use Tryptic soy blood agar plates? Carolina will only sell this to college labs. My mom is a high school science teacher and can obtain just about anything else, but this cannot be sold to even high-schools. Would other agar plates (that I can get) be alright to use? We already got permission to buy P. acnes strain NCTC 737 from the ATCC, but this blood agar cannot be purchased by us.

[ScienceExpert123]

dear sciencefairproject,

I apologize, but I do not know if you can substitute other agar plates for Tryptic soy blood agar plates, but when I did a google search of "Tryptic soy blood agar plates" and clicked the shopping tab on top I found online stores that sell Tryptic soy blood agar plates. You probably can buy the plates off those websites.

good luck,
scienceexpert123

[sciencefairproject]

Thank you.
If unable to buy off these sites, would I be able to use the alchohol and finger prick to use my own? Blood, I mean.

[Emily Willingham]

Hi, sciencefairproject. These are some tough questions because based on my review of the literature, this strain is pretty difficult to culture because of the anaerobic conditions required AND it does seem to require blood agar of some kind. For safety reasons, we cannot recommend performing your own fingerprick to obtain the blood. I had a couple of ideas you might try if the other places on the Web also do not make this agar available to high schools. One thing I did find that may be useful is that different kinds of blood agar seem to work; have you tried perhaps accessing some other version of blood agar from the commercial sources?

So the first place I would look were I in your shoes is a college or university. Are there any colleges (community or four-year) or universities in your area where lab research is performed? Even at community colleges, if they have microbiology classes, they may have some kind of blood agar. My experience is that many labs have several different kinds of agar on their shelves, and you might be able to find someone who has this kind of agar who might help you out. The best place to start for that kind of search would be a microbiology lab.

Another place might be your local DPS or a forensics lab where they do different kinds of microbial culturing, or a hospital lab. As your mother is a high-school science teacher, she might be the best person to approach these resources for help.

Last, I did find a reference to using "Reinforced Clostridial Agar," which contains a "meat extract," for growing this strain.

Please let us know if you are able to find this agar and how your project is coming along. This project is really interesting. I hope you enjoy the process.

Emily

[Emily Willingham]

Hi sciencefairproject--

I've got an update for you. I talked with Carolina and obtained a recommendation that might be a workaround for the inability to obtain blood agar. You can try brain-heart infusion agar. The information on P. acne in general is that it can be "tricky" to culture, so you have to be ready for a few tries or have enough plates going in case there are some failures. I have found a reference citing the use of this agar for culturing P. acne, which I've pasted in for you below.

According to Carolina, you--or your parent--should be able to order the brain-heart infusion agar.

Please keep us posted on how these suggestions are working out for you and how your project is going. You're getting up to your elbows in some of the nitty-gritty of the practice of science. Have fun!

Emily

Reference:
Fuimura and Nakamura (1978) used P. acnes CN-8 which produces acnecin, and a laboratory stock
culture strain P. acnes EXC-1.

"Cultivation was carried out at 37°C anaerobically in an anerobic glove box (COY Manufacturing Co., Ann Arbor, Mich.) for 4 days in a medium containing 3.7% brain heart infusion (Difco Laboratories, Detroit, Mich.) supplemented with 0.2% yeast extract (Difco)."

[sciencefairproject]

Thank you for all of the help. You said Carolina carried this meat extract agar? Do you know what the product # is?